Mashup: Web Meets Desktop. Is it Love?

I'm working with Google's new Gears functionality and API. From the painless, zero configuration installation of a Firefox plugin (as well as a fully featured database, although you wouldn't know it without reading the documenation) to working with the implementation within the Google Reader, the technology is astonishing in its simplicity of installation and use, and in the functional extension of the tools. My twitter post describes my first reaction:

Read feeds OFFLINE. On a flight; in the bush; while driving to work!!! Never, ever leave work.

To which a twitter friend responded:

christian: hmm... you had me till the ‘never, ever leave work’ part

Gears is a javascript API to store application data locally, and to provide asynchronous data exchange with an online application. While the application is not necessarily web-based, it's obvious that's what Google has in mind. In the case of the Gears for Google Reader extension, the user can choose to download subscribed feeds for later viewing offline. Other possible applications come to mind: new blog posts can be edited offline in situ (i.e., the airport terminal, fish market, etc.); user data from games like Second Life can be stored locally to improve performance of bandwidth hogs; offline access to email (web2.0, meet POP - is this really a good idea?); research data collected in a network free zone (this is a good idea).

Gears will leverage your local resources when they're available, but won't break the application when they're not (e.g., when you're using the office or lab workstation). The developer site is a little scant on resources, but more will come with adoption and acceptance.

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